Worms Armageddon

Most people know the phrase: "If you dont like the game its fine, but you have to admit it is good". I honestly never agree with that in the past, because in most cases if you dont like the game, you dont see whats so great about it. You dont see why everyone is praising it. Its a hard place to be, and no one wants anyone to ruin their "party". Criticism shouldnt be excluded for any game.... except CTR.

However Worms Armageddon teach me a hard lesson... you can still admit a game is good even if i cant like it. However, whats strange about this game is that... literally every single one love it! And say it is very accessible! And say is the only good game in the series! No no and no. Even if i admit a game is good but i dont like it, is not just for my tastes. My tastes are so varied that unless we are talking about sports games, it would rarely affect my vision about it. Its about flaws, so i would do my job like always.

Worms is a series i played a ton as younger, though only played specific games in the series because of how they kick my butt. Is an strange relationship, because i saw the games, you see them, they are really really fun and creative, and Worms Armageddon has one if not the best core gameplay in the entire series alongside the best multiplayer (i have to admit, pretty impressive for 1999 standards), the best quick match customization, one of the best team customizations and so on. This game hits the mark in some many areas and is also packed with content How i cant like it? Well, lets start with the "horror".

First of all, the game is very far from being accessible. Most of the content is locked and you have to do training courses, missions or challenges. Seems pretty straightforward right? No, because this are some of the most unfair missions i seen in a while. Getting gold, even on the first missions is very hard, with times that barely are enough or require finicky precision. I know you dont have to get gold in any of these to continue playing it. But the game expects you to do it, otherwise you wouldnt unlock anything from the quick matches or multiplayer. Plus starting in mission 6 or so, difficulty gets ridiculous in the campaign, especially the one where you have to shoot arrows to the Eiffeel Tower to do a platform. It wouldnt be so bad if they werent mines in the entire place! And when i reach the top of the tower, the entire place gets nuked with missiles and thats it. Give me a break! Even when you know what to do (i had to watch many walkthroughs) is still hard. While Worms Armageddon feature surprisingly good controls, the jumping in specific situations like this can be very frustrating. And the AI is only hard artificially, doing shots a player would never be able to do, with 100% accuracy from far away. I think it doesnt help either that many of the mechanics like using arrows to make a platform or using the ninja rope as a weapon for example, are hidden from the player. And dont get me wrong, this would actually be a good thing, if the game didnt demand it. Thats why i praised a lot the mechanics from CTR because they were the culmination of perfect accessibility in videogames; they were optional for the most part. Both new players and expert ones can fully enjoy the game because of that, complemented with a hidden dynamic difficulty that was strangely absent in the remake.

Some may say they focused all of the attention in the multiplayer, which is true, is incredible what they had done, but this is 1999. Not everyone had a good Internet connection in that era and not everyone had friends to play. Also, a good multiplayer would never excuse a bad, or in this case, a subpar singleplayer.

It is really funny because the PS1 version, despite all of the criticism it recieves this days for lacking content and so on (which is unfair especially considering its based on the original launch version and not the updated one from 2020), it fixes some of this issues. AI is not more 100% precise, times are way more forgiving to get gold (like a minute of difference more or less), you can manually load in any time which can save you from repeating the same deathmatch or campaign mission over and over again and some missions give the player more powerful weapons (although it was for a limitation). Yes, it is worse in terms of multiplayer and there is no fire, but... it is more fair singleplayer wise. If your goal Team 17 was to make a hard game, it needs to have a difficult curve, it needs to explain the hard to pull off mechanics. As younger i even struggled to do the first mission when i could entirely complete both 4 Mayhem and Arnageddon 2. Many of the later Worms games like Armageddon 2 would had all of the good from Armagedon 1 and focus its attention on the singleplayer plus better graphics. So why Armageddon 2 isnt considered the best in the series? Or World Party? Its a question only the die hard Worms fans know. But im not a die hard fan of this series. Im an average player who expects to be treated like the rest. And Worms Armageddon is very far from being accessible. I even think is even less accessible than the first Worms game since that game just gets straight to the point. It was also more fun imo.

Despite every negative thing i said, i still maintain Worms Armageddon has excellent qualities: Its multiplayer is fantastic, all of the team, map and scheme creation are very ahead of its time and there is a lot of stuff to play around, but without the good level design of the main campaign or the appropiate training to teach a new player about all of these hidden mechanics and the devs expecting you to be 100% perfect or just "get good", it doesnt quite reach the heights it could reach. For those reasons alone, i can admit that yes, Worms Armageddon is the best game i ever played... that i would never be able to enjoy. Not matter how much i try.